Some Jewish Women

Paperback | January 3, 2012

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Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1892. Excerpt: ... VII. MARTHA, DAUGHTER OF BOETHUS. How inexpressibly sad is the lot of the unfortunate woman whose story we are about to relate! What could she have done to merit the punishment of being thrown into the very midst of the deadly conflict of the Jewish people? Could she have rightfully claimed all the virtues in woman's golden alphabet,*--and it cannot be denied that she possessed some--living among such cruel men and in such evil times, she would still have been irretrievably lost. Unfortunately, she possessed, besides, the pride of better days, the pride by which noble persons not infrequently hasten their downfall, and which, amid the ruin of empires and sanctuaries, sometimes rises to tragic guilt. She was lacking both in tact * The alphabetically arranged Praise of Woman: Proverbs, XXXI, 10-31. and graceful submissiveness, when the time came for her to step down from the height to which she had attained. Once of the highest rank, a pampered woman, whose very name Martha Nmo (that is, ruler) betokened her imperious pride--is it a wonder that she still imagined herself encircled by the halo of her past glory. But let us not condemn her too severely for this feminine weakness. She was the daughter of Boethus, a man otherwise unknown. He must have been very wealthy, and belonged apparently to the Sadducean circles. The name Boethus, to which the Sadducees were very partial, seems to have been tainted* with heresy and to have been shunned in rabbinical circles. In the Echa Rabbati, a Midrash of * Boethus and Zadok became, according to Aboth derabbi Natan, 5, the founders of two sects named after them, whose creeds deviated from tradition. Hamburger's assertion {Real-Encycloptzdie, II, 1042), that the Boethusians took their name from Simon Boethus, the father-in-law of Herod, is, on the...